World Science Council
The World Science Council was established in LY 437 in First Village. It was conceived and founded by a scientist named Clarke (the first president of the Council), who came from Monab and traveled to all the villages of The Land (there were 13 at the time), meeting many scientists along the way. Clarke had always been a fan of the idea of organization as a methodology, though at the time there were not many actual organizations on the Land, in terms of large groups dedicated to a specific purpose (or set of purposes). In fact the only intervillage organization was The Order, which had been established the year before Clarke's birth. (Technically the Coast Guard was another intervillage organization, but it only existed in port villages, whereas the Order and the WSC would exist in every village on the Land.) Throughout Clarke's decade-long journey (426-436), he discovered that many scientists from different villages had made their own discoveries, inventions, etc., completely unaware that these things had already been accomplished by the scientists of another village or villages. This led him to believe that scientists should stay in touch via the postal services, though the idea of any true organization at first seemed impossible to him. However, an incident which occurred in Monab shortly after he returned from his journey (see Surreal) demonstrated to him that it was not only more important than he thought for the world's villages to work together, it was also more feasible than he had thought. (Ironically, this newfound confidence was largely inspired by the efforts of Sorreters in dealing with the aforementioned incident, though to a large extent Clarke's desire to organize the Land's scientific development was partly informed by a desire to ensure science could more readily catch up with and someday surpass the developments of magic.) Clarke believed that an organization such as the one he conceived would best be headquartered in First Village, which was the most central village on the Land. So he moved there in 437, and inspired by the newsletter of the Experimental Linguists' Club (which he had learned of while in Frinn, during his journey), he started the Landian Journal of Science (published by IlusCo, which later became LustriCorp), which he mailed to many of the scientists he had met throughout his journey (using the IlusCo Postal Service). Along with the first issue of the journal was an invitation to join him in establishing a worldwide organization of scientists. Over the years and the centuries to come, scientists from every village would submit articles which would be published in the journal, thus largely eliminating the duplicated (and therefore time-wasting) experiments and investigations of scientists around the world, thereby speeding up the development of Landian science. Though of course the WSC was more than just a periodical journal; it also led to cooperation between scientists on various projects, as well as eventually assuming other roles. It should be noted that it not only increased collaboration and sharing of knowledge between villages, but also between scientists within individual villages. It is commonly believed that the WSC served as at least partial inspiration to Kizin Planner in developing The Plan in 890. While the WSC has never been a religious organization like the Order, the Order itself had always seen organization as a very important concept, and hoped to someday unite the villages of the world. The WSC served as an early model demonstrating that such a thing was possible, to some extent. Upon the establishment of the Second Order in 904, there was some talk of integrating the WSC as a governmental agency, though ultimately this idea was rejected, and the organization remains independent. The current president of the WSC is Saffron Botanical, whose clan owns and maintains a number of botanical gardens around the world, including the one that makes up a part of the grounds of the Council's First Village headquarters. Category:Culture Category:Groups